


when i'm away, will you wait for me?

by atlantisairlock



Category: Gravity (2013), The Martian (2015)
Genre: Adoption, Angst with a Happy Ending, Families of Choice, Family Feels, Gen, Minor Character Death, Mother-Son Relationship, Not Canon Compliant, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 03:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7741471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/atlantisairlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All the trials that space put Ryan Stone through didn't prepare her to raise a son who'd grow up to get stranded on Mars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when i'm away, will you wait for me?

**Author's Note:**

> i don't even know where the inspiration for this came about. i just love ryan. and i love mark. 
> 
> mark doesn't go to the peace corps in this fic; he just goes straight to the gsrp & then the nasa acp. he also doesn't lose contact with nasa at any point after finding pathfinder because that was the most godawful part of the book and so fucking painful.
> 
> title from 'when i'm away' by the colourist.

Ryan makes a spectacular re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, lands in Lake Powell and nearly drowns, has to drag herself through six months' worth of press conferences and media interviews, and somehow, none of that is as difficult as finally getting on a plane home. 

She's not even sure where home is any longer. She knows she told Matt  _Lake Zurich,_ but now she's been away so long working with NASA and being up in space that it's not really accurate any more. Ryan thinks she's left her heart up there, amidst space dust and debris and maybe in the hands of a man with a now-empty oxygen tank, waiting for a rescue that's never going to arrive. 

She sticks around NASA even after the media hype dies down, out of the distorted logic that she's a little closer to the stars here, and by extension, to him. She sees Engineering in the halls, sometimes. They never meet her eyes. 

It takes her another two months before she finally summons up the courage to pick up sticks and just - go back to Lake Zurich. 

He's not there, but he's not here, either. 

 

 

After the Kessler Cascade destroys half the world's communication satellites and a bunch of other complicated stuff Ryan doesn't exactly know or particularly care about, even the White House doesn't have broadband for an entire month, so she's not exactly surprised that Lake Zurich still seems trapped in the fifties when she returns home. Everything moves slower. It's like a breath of fresh air. She can appreciate it, even if a lot of things have changed, so she has to reorient herself entirely. 

It's not as confusing and terrifying as space, but close as. 

 

 

She sinks into a sort of stupor, some kind of stagnation. She eats too little, sleeps too much, and all she spends her money on is gas, all she does is drive. 

Her neighbours are worried about her. It comes with living in a small town, she supposes. People are going to notice that her boxes are going unpacked and the weeds are finding a good home in her front garden. The Watneys next door bring a meatloaf over along with polite small talk. All Ryan wants to do is hide away and live in her isolated little bubble, where it's safe and comfortable and she can fill her days with the staticky crackling of her car radio, but as she's about to just conclude the conversation and shut the door on them, 

she thinks of Matt. Matt, and his stupid brown/blue/bloodshot eyes, and  _hey, Ryan, it's time to go home._

And she thinks he would be sad. She thinks he would be disappointed, that she made it  _all the way back_ against all odds - after he sacrificed his life for her, and she's going to just cut herself off from the world? 

She could be brave up there, amongst stars and satellites and space debris.

She can be brave now.

Ryan straightens her back and manages to smile. "Won't you come in?" 

 

 

Samantha and Carter Watney are very kind people. Ryan learns that they were both born and raised in Chicago, but moved to Lake Zurich for a quieter atmosphere after their last living relative in Chicago passed away. They believe strongly that neighbours have a duty to each other and are concerned about Ryan's general well-being. They saw her press conferences, of course, and admire her courage greatly - Samantha is two months pregnant, and they can't wait to tell their little one stories about the Kessler Cascade and the incredible astronaut that made it home. They are sweet without being overbearing or patronising, and Ryan takes an instant liking to them. It would be impossible not to. 

Their meatloaf is really good, too. That's definitely a plus. 

 

 

They become friends. Carter hefts his lawnmower out of the shed and insists on doing something about the sorry state of Ryan's yard. Samantha comes over to help Ryan with the unpacking and listens to her talk about being up in space. In turn, Ryan listens to her worry and fret about being the best mother she can be. 

Ryan doesn't think anyone could be a better mother. She tells Samantha so, and means every word of it.

 

 

Seven months later, the world is beginning to take recognisable shape again, having mostly recovered from the most debilitating effects of the Kessler Cascade. Ryan's finally begun to settle and really reintegrate herself back into the community. Over the fence in the Watney home, Samantha has a son. They name him Mark and introduce him to Ryan at the first month party. 

He's small, and very loud, with pale brown hair and a strong grip. His eyes are brown and almost familiar. 

She loves him from the moment she sees him.

 

 

Ryan is a very good babysitter. It turns out that taking care of an infant is like riding a bike - it's muscle memory, called back from a time when she had a young daughter and her whole life was laid out ahead of her, just waiting for her to walk her path. Mark takes easily to her. His parents are very grateful for all the times Ryan willingly babysits when they want to go out on date nights. 

She doesn't tell them that it's as much for her as it is for them. When she's with Mark, it's like the world has some meaning again, real meaning. 

She fought to come back for the sake of living itself. But she couldn't possibly expect that to sustain her all her life. 

This is something better than that. 

This is so much better. 

 

 

When Mark is six months old, Samantha gets a promising job offer from an overseas branch of the company that she works for. She and Carter discuss it, then agree to leave Mark with Ryan for a week while they go to London and check it out. Ryan waves them off from her front door and then brings Mark into the house. "Well, little man, we'll have some fun together for a week, shall we?" 

Mark giggles and waves his fists at her. Ryan smiles down at him. It's going to be a good week. 

 

 

She turns on the news the next day to discover that British Aqualantic Flight 10 has crashed with no survivors after suffering engine trouble halfway through the flight. 

And no, it's not Matt all over again, but maybe it's so much worse, because she's got a little boy sleeping in his crib in her bedroom who doesn't know that his entire world has just shifted upon his axis. 

She wants to do the only thing she knows how, which is to switch off and run and hide and drive, but Mark has just lost both his parents, and she can't do that to him. She doesn't have the luxury of that now. 

Ryan turns the TV off and goes to the kitchen to make breakfast. 

 

 

The Watneys' bodies are brought back relatively intact, but it's still a quiet, closed-casket funeral at the local cemetery. A lot of neighbours attend, because that's the kind of town Lake Zurich is. Ryan carries Mark around in her arms and people offer condolences as he drowses on her shoulder. 

The decision to take him in is made even before she can stop to think about it. 

 

 

People start clearing the Watney home out, because it's not healthy to leave things as they are and keep grieving over something that's not there any longer, which is something that Ryan thinks she's finally beginning to get. She hauls over the brand-new walker Carter bought in preparation for when Mark started getting up and toddling around, and all his toys, and a very familiar bowl that Ryan recognises from meatloaf dinners. The neighbourhood chaplain unearths the beginnings of a scrapbook that Carter was doing up, filled with photographs of Mark and Samantha and Carter himself, beautifully decorated. Ryan takes that too. 

Raising Mark right is going to mean making sure he knew how much his parents loved him. That they didn't want to leave him behind. 

 

 

She doesn't hear Matt's voice very often any more, but she's starting to be okay with that, too. 

 

 

Mark is an easy baby. He fusses at night, but not much. He starts talking and walking very early, and the resident paediatrician proclaims him to be a very healthy child. He laughs all the time. Everyone likes him, coos over him when they pass Ryan in the grocery store. 

He helps her forge bonds with her neighbours. One of the beat cops - Sharon? Shannon? Ryan isn't sure, she's always shouting, so she can never catch half of what Shannon-maybe-Sharon is saying - checks in on her whenever she's around the area and lets Mark play with her Marvin the Martian figures that she keeps in her belt. Sometimes Catherine, who lectures on Psych at the college two miles out, comes over with a salad and patiently watches endless reruns of  _Neptune,_ a space-themed show aimed at little kids, with Mark, who absolutely loves it. Ryan's pretty sure Catherine humours him because her girlfriend is the lead, or something. And then there's the Freemans a block down, greying around the edges and always ready with advice and anecdotes that all come from the experience of raising their three kids. Mark brings her closer to all of these people, and down the line she begins to realise she's really grateful for it, and for him.

 

 

When Mark is four, he calls her Mom for the first time. Ryan's heart skips a beat, and her knees go so weak she has to sit down. She hasn't heard that directed at her since Sarah died, and it's like all the wind's been knocked out of her lungs. 

He's looking at her, all curious and bewildered, her son. Her son. 

The last thing she wants to do right now is to be brave and do the right thing, but she seems to be pretty good at that. 

Ryan pats the beanbag chair next to her, gesturing for Mark to sit down while she goes and fetches Carter's scrapbook, which has pride of place on her mantelpiece. "Let's talk about something, sweetheart." 

He takes it far better than she would have expected, even after she brings him to his parents' graves, and he doesn't stop calling her his mother. Ryan can't help but love him all the more for it.

 

 

Catherine is the one who suggests telling him about Ryan's death-defying experience in space, because Mark _really_ loves space. And he's going to learn about it  _someday,_ so she decides she might as well let him hear it straight from the horse's mouth. 

Mark is totally fascinated. She spins it into a bedtime story, tells the whole journey to him in bite-sized chunks that make him look forward to bedtime. He's always clinging on to her words, always wide-eyed, always eager to know what happened next. His excitement is infectious and it makes Ryan fall in love with the stars all over again. She's never going back up there, no, but Mark makes it feel like it wasn't all bad, wasn't all lonely, wasn't as awful as she remembers it to have been. He's got a bit of Sarah and Matt and Samantha and Carter in him all at once, so Ryan keeps the story going, relives it through him. 

She's not sure when she realises that - whatever happens, whatever life decides to throw at him - Mark is going to end up on a ship taking him up to the depths of the great unknown, all ready to explore. She's not sure when she becomes okay with it.

 

 

Elementary school rolls around far faster than Ryan thought it would. She sends Mark off to school with a little Star Trek backpack and an Aquaman lunchbox - go figure. He comes home with a crude drawing centred around the theme When I Grow Up. It has a star sticker on it and a smiley face in red ink. 

_when I grow up I want to be an ASTRONAUT like my mom and discover lots of stars and plants and aliens_

Ryan points at 'plants'. "Do you mean planets, honey?"

Mark shakes his head vehemently. "I wanna find space plants! I bet there's space _trees!"_

"I'm sure there are," Ryan smiles, and puts the drawing on the fridge. 

 

 

Mark never grows out of his love for space, but he develops new interests, too. When he's ten he falls in love with gardening after his school does an Environment module for Civics, something like that. He begs Ryan for spades and trowels and seeds and soil and fertiliser and so on and so forth, and she's eventually so confused that she just takes him to Home Depot and lets him pick out a couple of things. What harm can it do, she reasons. She gamely helps him clear out a patch of the back garden and lets him get to it.

To Ryan's surprise, he has a natural green thumb. The garden is flowering and absolutely beautiful by the time the year is out. He even sets up some masterful irrigation system and grows vegetables - with organic fertiliser, he's very insistent about it. He goes door to door with that charming smile of his and the neighbours buy bundles of spinach for a reasonable price. She's impressed. Her boy is good at this. 

 

 

"You've got a good boy." The beat cop - Mullins is her surname, but Ryan's given up on figuring out what exactly her first name is - tells her, leaning against Ryan's fence. It's a particularly cold winter thirteen years after she took Mark in. Ryan's surprised Mullins hasn't moved on to a better position in the force, but apparently she does her best work just protecting the community this way. Ryan makes her coffee sometimes, which Mullins drinks with gusto while watching Mark taking care of his pansies in the garden. "Won't find many like him around, helping everyone out and doing well in school and staying out of trouble."

Ryan doesn't need to be told. Mark is the best son she could have ever asked for, and if she's been raising him right, it's just repaying a debt she'll always owe. 

 

 

Jackie Kirk leaves the industry and moves to Lake Zurich to get married to Catherine. Mark, gangly and a little awkward at fifteen, gets invited to the quiet garden wedding with Ryan. He can't stop gaping when Catherine introduces him to her wife with a wicked grin that means she knows  _exactly_ how starstruck he'd be. 

"Holy sh - crap, you're  _Jackie Kirk,"_  Mark gasps, when he finally regains his ability to speak. "I grew up watching Neptune, oh my god. It's 90% the reason why I want to become an astronaut when I'm older."

"That's flattering," Ryan says drily, to Catherine and Jackie's amusement. Mark laughs, too, and lets Ryan ruffle his hair. 

 

 

Mark grows up. 

He does well in his academics, graduates from the local high school as valedictorian. He sits with Ryan and discusses his plans for the future. He wants to go to U of C, he says, plans to do his undergrad there, maybe do a PhD after that in Plant Bio. He wants to do environmental engineering. And he still wants to go to space, now it's been so many years and NASA's got something called ARES I in the works and he wants to be a part of that, still wants to follow in Ryan's footsteps. 

Ryan sends him off to Chicago with her blessings, her love and a meatloaf recipe. She promises to take care of his garden as best as she can while he's away. She's prepared to cry when his plane takes off, and she's surprised when she doesn't - but only for a moment. 

Because he'll come back. She knows he will. 

 

\---

 

And he does, he always does, because there's nobody on God's green earth that Mark loves more than his mom. Mark goes back to Lake Zurich every holiday, no matter how busy he is, jokes that it's only because he's afraid Ryan's decidedly non-green thumb'll decimate his beautiful flowerbeds and because his meatloaf just doesn't taste the same even though he follows the recipe to the letter.

That part is true. Nobody makes meatloaf like his mom does. 

Mark spends dinners going on animatedly about what he's doing in uni. It's all so interesting, it's so  _cool,_ he's learning so much, he can see his future unfolding before him. His mother smiles indulgently at him from over her plate and asks him scientific questions that remind him that his mom is  _Ryan Stone,_ super-smart super-talented super-accomplished and she knows way more than he ever will. 

She always sends him off at the station when he needs to get back to campus and tells him to come home again soon. He never teases her about  _that,_ never jokes about how she  _knows_ he'll be back, because she can laugh with him about everything but that. He grew up knowing about Sarah and Matt Kowalski and his real parents, and he knows that she has never had the reassurance that someone that leaves her  _is_ going to come home to her. So he promises, without fail, every time, and he means it. 

 

 

So he's off to do his PhD at Northwestern, holy fuck, he's actually going to  _do his PhD in Plant Bio_ and the first person he calls is his mom and he just screams the news down the line. He can  _hear_ Ryan wincing all the way in Lake Zurich, but she's laughing and congratulating him and telling him she's so damn proud of him. It just so happens that she's at Aunt Catherine and Aunt Jackie's anniversary party, which means all his honorary aunts and uncles are there and he gets to hear  _everyone_ offering effusive praise. He just leans against the wall and closes his eyes, lets it wash over him, that this is fucking  _real._

He's getting to live his dream, and he loves every single second of it. 

 

 

He visits Mrs Freeman in the hospice after his mom calls and tells him he should find time to come back, because she doesn't have a lot of time left. She's instilled in him that knowledge that family is everything, that nothing should come between him and the people that he loves, so he comes back. Like he always does. 

"Is your heart still set on going to space?" She asks him, voice still strong, and he nods. It's always, always been his greatest passion, he's never going to give up on it. He has a clearer idea, now. He wants to join the ARES missions, one of them, wants to make history with like-minded individuals. 

Mrs Freeman squeezes his hand. "You do that. Keep dreaming. Don't let anybody tell you what you can and can't do." 

He takes that to heart. 

 

 

He gets to join the GSRP while he's studying for his degree, which frankly,  _fuck!_ He's so bucked he could do a victory dance in the middle of Times Square with the president watching, no fucks given. 

His application for the ACP comes later, and he discovers he's fucking terrified when it's time to apply. If he doesn't make it, he really has no idea what he's going to do. He's happy where he is, but he wants to make his mom proud. She still has that godawful drawing of an astronaut that he did when he was six or something on the fridge at home, smiles at it sometimes when she thinks he isn't looking, so fuck yeah, he's going to become a fucking astronaut! 

They send him a letter telling him he's been selected for  _HOLY SHIT, ARES III,_ he's going to join the crew on ARES fucking III and he just about loses it and lands a bearhug on the nearest person in the vicinity. They're a total stranger, very happy for him, they assure him, but scurry away nonetheless. 

This is it. 

This is  _it._

 

 

He gets to meet the rest of the crew, and NASA wants to make damn sure that they aren't going to go at each others' throats three months into the trip to Mars, which apparently involves going to one another's hometowns and really getting to know each other. 

"I am from Germany," Vogel informs them in that deep voice of his. "It will be a bit difficult to go to my hometown, you understand."

So no sauerkraut for them, and Annie Montrose wants good PR but cheaper flight tickets so they arrange that they'll visit Beck's family, who live in Connecticut and are extremely renowned, and Watney's family, since he lives in Illinois and his adoptive mom is  _Ryan fucking Stone._

Mark calls home in a panic. "Mom, you have  _got_ to take that awful astronaut drawing off the fridge before we come and visit."

She laughs at him for a solid minute, but agrees to do it anyway. And to make meatloaf. She makes the best meatloaf. 

 

 

Because they all know Ryan - who the hell doesn't know Ryan? - they're all in total awe when they meet her. It's satisfying to see his crewmates' expressions. They're never this impressed with  _him._

"You are as cool as all the documentaries make you sound," Johanssen says over dinner, still not over her hero-worship. They all get it, though, so they let it slide. 

"Yeah," Martinez chimes in. "What happened to Mark?"

"Hey!" Mark flicks his mashed potatoes at him from across the table. Everyone chuckles, and Lewis shrugs gravely. "He's not wrong."

"Oh, come  _on,_ Commander!" 

 

 

Unsurprisingly, NASA lets Ryan be there when ARES III launches. 

"Take care of yourself," she says to Mark before he gears up, and he hugs her tight. "I'll be home soon."

 

 

So he goes to Mars.

 

 

And yeah, shit happens. 

It must run in the family.

 

 

He wakes up on Mars, alone, bleeding out and wheezing, and thinks:  _fuck this, I'm Ryan Stone's son._

He gets to work.

 

 

Thank fucking god he's a botanist, and thank fucking god for Psych and their Thanksgiving dinner idea and fucking potatoes, and especially thank fucking god for having grown up with a mother who taught him how to deal with space when space decides that it's going to have a jolly good time screwing you over.

He nearly blows himself up, destroys the airlock and has to start rationing ketchup all before he gets Pathfinder going again.

He just keeps going, because that's what his mom did, and if she could do it, so fucking can he. 

 

 

He wonders what they told her, back home. Wonders - hopes - that the people he loves are staying by her side and comforting her and making sure she doesn't fall apart. Wonders how she's going to react when he finally manages to communicate to the world that he's alive, dammit, he's alive!

When Pathfinder starts working again, NASA asks him a whole lot of questions that he dutifully answers, and then he makes them send his own message in the code.

_TELL MY MOM I LOVE HER._

 

 

When he was a bit older, when he could really understand what she went through up there in space, his mom told him about Matt. 

Mark knows about Matt. He watched all the documentaries about the Kessler Cascade, every single one, including the weirder ones about alien conspiracy theories. But hearing Ryan tell him about it - that was different. That was his mom telling him about a man she loved - still loves, he knows - and a man who loved her back, who loved her enough to die so that she could live.

And he also knows that she has loved only two men in her life - the man who died for her, and the son she lived, or _lives,_  for. 

She lost one of them to space.

Hell if he's going to let her lose another. 

 

 

They finally start being able to send him email. There are five - from the president - holy shit, the current Doctor Who lady - holy _SHIT_ , Martinez, Aunt Jackie and his mom. 

He leaves that one for last, because he just knows he'll end up crying when he reads it and he had better get through the others first. 

The president lauds him for his courage, tells him to keep being strong and that America is cheering him on. The Doctor Who lady says about the same thing, and reminds him to always have hope. Martinez's email is lighthearted and sincere, and he's already tearing up when he moves to Aunt Jackie's email, in which she recalls what he said to her at her wedding so many years ago. 

His mom's email is short, simple, sweet.

_Mark,_

_I love you very much, and I know you'll get through this._

_We are all waiting for you back home. I didn't stop taking care of your garden, but I'm afraid some of your flowers won't do very well till you're back._

_Come back soon._

_Mom._

Yep, he cries. Not his best moment. Still, there's no one on Mars to see him. 

 

 

He has to take a very, very, very long road trip across Mars to get to where he's going, another step back to home, accompanied by NASA breathing down his neck, Lewis' truly awful collection of disco music - he's going to have a lot to say to her when he gets back, and  _all_ of it is going to be about ABBA,  _fucking_ ABBA - and his mom's emails. 

And that's so much more than enough. 

 

 

The world is watching, waiting with bated breath when he counts down to the launch. 

He thinks of his family back in Lake Zurich, crowded around the TV in the living room, closes his eyes.

_Three._

_Two._

_One._

 

 

"Houston, this is _Hermes_ Actual. Six crew safely aboard."

 

 

They meet him in the airlock, this batshit ridiculous crew of his, and everyone crowds around him screaming and crying until Dr. Bossy Beck shoulders his way in - he somehow has a way of doing that even in  _zero_ fucking  _gravity_ - and demands that Mark takes a shower - "Jesus, you smell like a skunk took a shit in some sweat socks" - and then he has to check on his chest, and draw up a dietary plan because he's so damn malnourished Beck can see his  _ribs,_ and blah, blah, blah, and he's just so damn happy he doesn't give a shit right now, because he's home. Not yet, not really, but he's on the way, he's on the way, he's  _back._

 

 

It takes five million more years to get back to Earth. Okay, it doesn't, but it feels that way. 

Thankfully, none of them go at anyone's throats, because apparently Psych tested them right, okay, Mark  _gets_ it, Psych is godly, Psych deserves all the awards, and oh my god, are they  _still_ talking about his potatoes?  _Really?_

He doesn't touch potatoes for the rest of his trip home. There's no meatloaf. He wants meatloaf. He talks about it so much Martinez threatens to tie him to a chair and force-feed him all the potatoes they have in the pantry. 

"He's just edgy because he's not getting laid," Johanssen says reassuringly. She has a grin on her face which means Beck finally grew a pair. Not bad, Beck. Colour him impressed.

 

 

When they finally get back to Earth and America and Washington DC he can't leave Hermes, because he's suddenly so terrified that he's going to step out of there and realise it was all a dream. It takes them half an hour to finally convince him that's it's okay. That he's home. 

It's Lewis that manages it, because she talks to NASA and they pull some strings or something and she finally goes to his side. "Mark. Your mom is on a flight here right now." 

He gets out of the Hermes. 

 

 

They have to go through quarantine and a debrief and lots and lots and lots of reporters shrieking at them and there are so many people, so many, but he's just looking out for one face. One person who NASA rushes in through, past the barriers and red tape, all the way to the infirmary where they're doing an incredibly detailed checkup on him. Mark realises that he's  _exhausted,_ like the life has been drained from his bones, until the door opens, and Ryan steps in, looking older than he remembers, so tired, but her eyes so full of hope. 

And Mark can't help but smile. 

He made it.

_He made it._

"Hi, Mom," he says. "I'm home." 

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: ignores mark's canon parents and canon birthdate + also ignores that ryan stone's not in her early thirties + mark's parents are named for beloved dead characters in person of interest + ryan's neighbours are crossover characters from the heat, bloomington & gattaca for no reason other than for fun.


End file.
